German parliament right to refuse access to AfD employee, court rules

The German parliament was right to refuse access to a member of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) over his links to Russian government agencies, a Berlin court decided on Friday.

The case involved Ulrich Oehme, who served as an AfD lawmaker in the Bundestag – Germany’s lower house of parliament – between 2017 and 2021.

After losing his seat, he was employed as a staffer for another AfD lawmaker, but was refused a pass to access the parliament.

In expedited proceedings, the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court (OVG) upheld a previous lower-court ruling, which found that the Bundestag’s administration was entitled to assume the man posed a risk to the functioning of the parliament.

“It seems to me that this ruling is political,” Oehme told dpa, confirming that he would pursue the case in main proceedings.

According to the Bundestag’s house rules, lawmakers’ employees must undergo a reliability check before they can be issued a pass.

The OVG said Oehme had not convincingly demonstrated that he possesses the necessary reliability to earn a pass.

The court’s decision will be examined in the full proceedings. According to judicial sources, the court has received two further lawsuits from AfD lawmakers’ employees who were denied passes to access the Bundestag.

The far-right AfD is Germany’s largest opposition party. It is under investigation by domestic intelligence agencies over its extremist views.